A partnership between one of New Jersey's largest hospital networks and a world-renowned leader in cancer care could give a major boost to treatment available in the state.

Hackensack Meridian Health system and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of Manhattan announced the unprecedented partnership on Wednesday. It is expected to offer standardized treatment for tens of thousands of patients at more than a dozen hospitals and outpatient facilities in the state.

The success of the collaboration lies in part in the strength of numbers: Combining the two enormous systems will produce more than 800 clinical trials for 5,000 patients as well as 30,000 cancer surgeries a year. It will also aid more than 900 bone-marrow-treatment patients annually, the largest program in the country if not the world, leaders of both institutions said.

"We want, as a partnership, to develop a program that makes it easier to access the best care, the most current treatment advances and the best clinicians in the world,'' said Dr. Craig B. Thompson, president and chief executive of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

The existing sites in New Jersey, including the John Theurer Cancer Center in Hackensack and Sloan's three outpatient locations in Basking Ridge, Monmouth County and Montvale, opening in 2018, will bear the Memorial-Sloan Kettering-Hackensack Meridian Health partnership name and share the same care protocols, said Robert C. Garrett, co-CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health Network, one of the state’s largest.

"We will build new sites together as true partners to bring world-class care to new communities throughout our region and ultimately across the nation,'' Garrett said at a news conference at the future site of the network's medical school, in development with Seton Hall University at the former campus of the Roche pharmaceuticals company in Nutley and Clifton.

"Together we will be stronger, smarter and faster,'' Garrett said.

Hackensack University Medical Center.(Photo: NorthJersey.com)

Each organization will independently own and operate existing sites but will collaborate in offering patients a variety of clinical trials and other services that will become among the largest in the nation. The partnership brings marquee cancer care to Hackensack Meridian, already a robust provider. Sloan gains access to suburban patients as cancer centers compete fiercely for patients, including many not eager to travel to Manhattan for care.

Sloan has been providing care in New Jersey for 20 years, and has relationships with health systems in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. But the agreement with Hackensack Meridian marks its most elaborate and integrated deal, Thompson said. Sloan has collaborated with Quest Diagnostics in Madison to develop molecular testing available for pathologists throughout the country, which will also be used by physicians in the new partnership, Thompson said.

Throughout New Jersey, hospitals are establishing partnerships with major providers. The Valley Health System in Ridgewood has affiliated with the Mount Sinai Health System, and Cooper University Medical Center in Camden has partnered with the University of Texas’s MD Anderson Cancer Center to enhance cancer services and coordinate care.

With more than 1.6 million new cases of cancer expected to be diagnosed this year and the cost of treatment expected to increase dramatically — the federal government expects 27 percent in a decade — hospitals, payers and the government are turning to strategies to help rein in spending. The initiatives call for coordinated care on diagnostics, surgery, chemotherapy and after-care. For example, Hackensack and more than 100 physicians participate in efforts that include upgrading electronic medical records to avoid duplication of testing, hiring a patient navigator to help patients in the confusing new world of cancer treatment, and finding the most cost-effective care with the best outcomes in the nation.

Partnership goals

The partnership will help both sides work toward two goals: delivering one standard of care through data tracking and precision medicine — a more personalized and effective way to treat cancer — while cutting costs.

Precision medicine takes into account a person's genes, environment and other factors as well as type and stage of disease. Advances in this approach have already led to new treatments. Patients with breast, lung, and colorectal cancer, as well as melanoma and leukemia, routinely undergo molecular testing that helps physicians select treatments to improve the chance of survival and reduce side effects. Today, two-thirds of the patients diagnosed with cancer are alive five years after diagnosis, a radical improvement of the one-third survival rate of years ago, Thompson said.

Aligning precision medicine and cost reduction is the holy grail for much of cancer treatment today, notes Dr. Andrew Pecora, chief innovations officer at Hackensack Meridian Health and a leader in the collaboration with Sloan. "There will be only one standard of care, only one approach, and that will be based on the best and latest evidence. And given our capabilities and information, it's going to be unparalleled," he said.

Hackensack, under Pecora's direction, created a system known as COTA, a digital classification network that tracks patient gender, age, family history, and type and stage of disease. A patient is assigned a number and the system tracks the numbers to determine outcomes. Seven years in the making, a U.S. patent was issued this summer.

Dr. Jose Baselga, Sloan's chief medical officer, who had run the largest clinical trial in Europe, expressed eagerness to harness such data as a major tool in tracking outcomes and maximizing treatment options.

"What we have here is a team of physicians and nurses that share the same beliefs and same principles," he said. "I think collecting the strength of the two systems is absolutely amazing.''

About the partners

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is the world's oldest and largest private cancer center, established 130 years ago. U.S. News & Report ranked it as the No. 1 hospital for cancer care in the country. It has a staff of 13,000, including 935 attending physicians and a vast network of researchers. Sloan treats more than 400 types of cancer, and pathologists analyze more than 40,000 tumor samples each year. In 2013, nearly 137,000 patients were seen at all of Sloan's locations, with 22,326 admitted to the hospital in Manhattan.

Hackensack Meridian Health comprises 13 hospitals, including two academic medical centers, Hackensack University Medical Center and Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune and two children's hospitals. Community hospitals include HackensackUMC Palisades in North Bergen and HackensackUMC at Pascack Valley in Westwood.